Fr
Kyrillos’ Comments and Confessions

We
begin a new ecclesiastical year 2001-2002. We also could say a new school year
or a new working year, etc. What is certain is that we feel in some way a new
beginning in our life. It is September. It is not a very emotional beginning,
as is the 1st of January, we do not feel so deeply an addition to
our personal age. Our attitude is more optimistic as beginning. We feel more a
sense that we have a future to gain and build something that we have not yet
achieved.

However,
the readers of my Comments and Confessions last month, would have been
affected by the memory of our deathbrought by contemplating the
way in which our Lady, the Mother of God, and our Lord himself prepared to accomplish
their own deaths in the presence of the Father. Therefore, our attitude at the
beginning of the ecclesiastical year, in September, looking towards the
future, would be full of good resolutions and aspirations to conduct our life
positively in the presence of God. That is according to the commandments and
statutes of God.

Our
Holy Mother Church fulfilling its duty to educate us, and encouraging us to
remain on our toes-that is with watchfulness-puts for our reading, at the Sperinos
or Vespers of the first day of September, three texts of the Old
Testament: Isaiah (61:1-9), Leviticus (26:3-12, 14-17, 19-24) and Wisdom
(4:7-15).Later on the day, at the Divine Liturgy, also our Mother puts
another two texts for our meditation, this time, the passages from the first
Epistle to Timothy (2:1-7) and from the Gospel of Luke (4:16-22a). If you wish
to benefit from them, you have to read them yourself in the quiet of your
room:

‘The
spirit of the Lord is upon me,

for
He has anointed me

to
bring the good news to the afflicted, …

to
proclaim a year of favour from the Lord.’

These
were words that Jesus used to proclaim publicly to the world his presence and
business among us. The Mother Church uses them now to insist that the new
ecclesiastical year is, too, a year of favour from the Lord for us. And
using the words of the Apostle, implicitly, asks to me and to you, to each one
in our heart: what plans are you making to benefit from the favour that
the Lord God grants you in this new year 2001-02?

You
may ask, why make plans? What plans?

Indeed
many people in this country today live inerthially. They get up in the
morning, breakfast, work, smoke a cigarette, work, take tea, coffee, drink,
drive, shop, smoke again, eat, TV, disco, personal computer, sex, sleep…Some
are very well off; others, struggling; and many survive by social benefits.
As-Nationally-Orthodox Christians they baptized their children in church on
the Sunday, have a party, receiving many presents, of course, however, with no
awareness that in the morning there was the Divine Liturgy; they married their
sons or daughters in church on the Sunday-have a big reception and a lot of
presents and bank-notes hanging on the nuptial gowns- but no awareness that in
the morning there was the Divine Liturgy; … funeral service in church, short
and quick-the priest is in a hurry, he has so many services!-men dressed in
black and unsaved, koliva, memorial services-still no awareness to offer the
Divine Sacrifice of the Liturgy, the only complete memorial service! Of
course, who cares to offer the forty consecutive Liturgies for the deceased!
Not even the priest knows about that holy tradition of the Church! Ah! Yes:
when we arrive to church, we make many times, well, we intend to make, the
signed of the cross, but, in fact, it looks more that we play the guitar over
our chests, in a hurry, as if we have to catch up with so many crosses as we
should have made over us but we did not…! This is what we do when we come to
church, you see, we are Nationally-Orthodox…! In deed, this is to be inertially
orthodox. Isn’t it?

Inertially…?
It is an adverb that I have just made to make explainable our contemporaneous
behaviour as Christians. That is, our live is inertia. We live an
existence in continuous movement of behaviour by the impulse of what we call today’s
life. Perhaps, it would be more accurate to describe it as our bodies’
demands. To satisfy these demands we have to work, eat, drink, entertain,
laugh, cry and weep, love or hate, like or dislike, etc. To solve these
demands we think, study, acquire skills, feel successful, or bear failure and
monotonousness. We could say that, in a way, it is a continuous movement of
frantic activity in which our heart is simply carried; or we could say that,
in other way, it is a continuous rest of monotonous boredom in which our heart
floats barely breathing. We live inertially, because we exist in a
state of motion or in a state of rest in a straight line of time passing,
unless external forces change that state.

For
us Christians that external force is the Holy Church. As a mother, the Church
has developed a system to shake us, to keep us on our toes. One instrument of
the system is the calendar with its feasts. So, at the beginning of September,
we are inspired with a future “acceptable to God our Saviour: He wants
everyone to be saved and reach full knowledge of the truth” (1
Tim.2:3-4). The will of God is very clear: the salvation of each one of us.
However, it is up to us to “accomplish” it. You remember our
comments of August? ‘We are not asked how to be born, but we are left free
how to die.’ Do you remember the words of Saint Anthony the Great? To have
communion with God is possible for him who so wishes and understands how it is
to be done. That is, asking, praying, interceding for others and, over all,
giving thanks to God. The benefits of this activity in our lives will not only
be for the Eternal Life, but will be received in this temporal life also,
living “peaceful and quiet lives with all devotion and propriety”(1.
Tim. 2:1-2).

Quite
a project! Isn’t it? To run it we need to make serious plans! This project
is not a game and neither an easy run. Saint Paul compares it with the hard
work of the athlete, and Christ himself said that the road that leads to life
is hard and the gate is narrow (Mt. 7:13-14) while the road that leads to
destruction is wide and spacious. Later in September, at the end of the
celebration of the Feast of the Holy Cross, that will be the Sunday after the
Feast, we shall hear how to plan and enter into this program for Salvation:

“If
any one wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up
his cross and follow me” (Mk. 8:34).

We
were saying earlier, at this beginning of a new year in September, that we feel
and sense a future to gain and for building something we have not yet built.
This something is ‘ME’ or my ‘I,’ Do not think I am talking in Freudian
language but in Christ’s terms. The personalities of those grown up
Christians, in general, have lost childhood. And we have to recover it if we
want to be saved. There is not other alternative. Jesus Christ is absolutely
clear and definitive about it: “unless you change and become like little
children you will never enter the kingdom of Heaven” (Mt. 18:3). What do
we when we buy an old house, which is more or less in ruins, before we move in
to live in it? We look for an architect, who understands the problems and
weaknesses of the building, made new plans, look for workers and rebuild it up
to a better glory than when it was originally built, that is, we put into it the
last comforts of our day. But the ‘change’ has to be made by us and
it is us who will suffer the ‘becoming.’ If we are Christian men or
women, we shall never live “inertially.” If we live inertially
we are not Christians. It does not matter how much National-Orthodox we are. We
are not Christians because we shall not enter the kingdom of Heaven. These are
the words of Christ.

Through
the year the Mother Church warns her children insistently that some of them
will fail to enter in the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, on the first day of
September using the Book of Wisdom shows us that “length of days is not
what makes age honourable nor the number of years is the true measure of
life”, however “understanding, this is grey hairs and untarnished
life, this is ripe old age” (Wisdom 4:8-9). The Christian cannot be an
ignorant. The Christian has to be a man or woman who understands, who knows
the laws of God, who keeps His commandments and who puts them into practice.
Then God is faithful and will help you on the Way because it is the year of
favour from God. In deed it is hard to say NO to our selves, we feel
afflicted, broken-hearted, captive when our friends live enjoying the world,
its riches and pleasures. However, “this is the year of vengeance for our
God to comfort all who mourn,” to give to all who suffer “the oil
of gladness,” and they who rebuild the ancient ruins, they will raise
what has long lain waste and they will restore the ruined cities. Then they
will receive double and shouts of joy will be their lot. “For I, The One
Who Is, (their Lord God) love fair judgment and I shall reward them
faithfully” (the reading from Isaiah).

BUT
if you do not listen to
me (your God) and do not put all these commandments into practice… this is
how I shall treat you:

I
shall subject you to terror, consumption and fevermaking you
dim of sight and short of breath. …

…If,
in spite of this, you will not listen to me, I shall punish you seven times
over for your sins…And if that does not reform you…(The reading from
Leviticus) you will become ashes.

Before
we shall begin the Great Lent, next February, the Mother Church will bring to
our contemplation again the severity of Christ, advising us of His Last
Judgement. Yes, my dear reader, it is time now to make plans to avoid that
life of inertia, and to embrace positively a conduct of life pleasing to God,
who is present every where even in own hearts.

Let
us look to the Star of faithfulness, Our Most Holy Immaculate Most Glorious,
Mother of God and ever Virgin Mary, also our Mother, whose Nativity we are
going to celebrate this month of September, she is the Ladder that connects us
sinners with the throne of God. She is also The Gate through which The One Who
Is, the God of Israel, Our God, came to us. She is too the house built by The
Wisdom, simple, going forwards in the ways of perception and in the fear of
God.

Perhaps,
a model plan for our future may be based in the Apostolos of 8 September:

“…Out
of humility of mind everyone should give preference to others, everyone
pursuing not selfish interests but those of others. Make your own the mind
of Christ Jesus:

Who
being in the form of God, did not count equality with God something to be
grasped.

But
he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, becoming as human beings
are; and being in every way like a human being,

He
was humbler yet, even to accepting death, death on the cross.

And
for this God raised him high, and gave him the name which is above all other
names; so that all beings in the heavens, on earth and in the underworld,
should bend the knee at the name of Jesus and that every tongue should
acknowledge Jesus Christ as Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
(Phil. 2:3-11).